


Rock, Paper, Scissors

by GretaRama



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil's vacation, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, How Do I Tag, M/M, Other, Sexual Content, Telepathy, The Desert Otherworld, rock throwing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 20:51:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3992452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretaRama/pseuds/GretaRama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The story of my friendship with Cecil Palmer, how I inadvertently accompanied him on his vacation to the desert otherworld, and what I learned about relationships, vulnerability, friendship, and my tragically doomed romance with Simone Rigadeau, by Sarah Sultan, President, Night Vale Community College</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rock, Paper, Scissors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlephandMutt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlephandMutt/gifts).



> This came about as the result of an interesting conversation I had with AlephandMutt, so this story is for her. See? Sarah Sultan finally gets some (well, sort of), and it totally makes sense, no rickrolling!

I’ll admit right off the bat that Cecil and I got off to a rocky start. I met him for the first time when he came to my office to see if I had anything to say about one of Harrison Kip’s more overtly controversial projects. As a general rule, I don’t dictate to our professors about their research. Also, since I’m a felsic intrusive igneous rock, the prospect of re-education and torture is pretty meaningless to me, so I’ve managed to maintain my independence as the President of Night Vale Community College. I don’t go out of my way to offend the Sheriff’s Secret Police or the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency, but I also don’t have to kowtow, if you see what I mean. As long as I keep my figurative head down and allow public mockery of anything that offends the powers that be, there are no problems. So there was no way I was putting my support or condemnation of Kip’s work on the public record. No way.

“…obviously I pointed out that that was impossible, since everybody knows that the pyramids were constructed from rare space metals, and no earth-dwellers had access to those until the tail end of the First Blood Space War in 1887. And math? Since when has that ever had any practical applications?”

Ugh, it seemed like he would never shut up. I’m telepathic, so I can converse when I want to, but I don’t usually interrupt people. It's impolite, and some people find it unsettling. I waited, studying Cecil as he continued to talk. Cecil didn’t look at all the way I had imagined when I listened to him on the radio. I wondered why people tended to describe him in such non-specific terms, given his salient physical characteristics. There was one thing in particular – I’m sure I don’t have to tell you – that really stood out, and I couldn’t believe no one had ever even _mentioned_ it. 

“…but he just kept going on and on about documentary sources and archaeological data consistently demonstrating that the benevolent ancient aliens had nothing to do with the pyramids or the discovery of agriculture. So: my listeners are wondering if you’d like to make a statement about these dangerous ideas that have seeped into your curriculum from the lunatic fringe of archaeological pseudoscience?”

If it had been you sitting at my desk, you might have sighed in resignation, or turned away a little and rolled your eyes. I didn’t, because I don’t have eyes, but I probably felt the way you feel when you do that kind of thing. Maybe you’d have thrown an equally unnecessary and tiresome barrage of words back at the reporter, with your lungs and your throat and your mouth. I don’t have any of those body parts either, so I lifted my ink brush– not the way you would do it, since I don’t have any hands – and wrote “No Comment” on the pad of paper on my desk. Just for fun, I added a little sketch of Cecil.

I might’ve exaggerated one or two things a little. I also might’ve used my telepathy to identify the things that made him feel the most insecure.

“Oh!” he said. “That’s – I mean…that’s just _so_ …” I just sat there. Nobody does deadpan like a river cobble. “There’s no need to get personal, Sarah,” he finally managed to say, obviously hurt.

That caricature was cruel and unfair, I see that now, but I only did it because he was being so incredibly fatuous. Nobody pays any attention to Harrison Kip. At the time, I suspected that maybe Cecil was really upset because Harrison was taking his ideas to the local television station instead of to NVCR, and it all seemed so petty. Plus, I always figured Cecil’s adherence to the party line was mostly tongue-in-cheek, so I was a little surprised, and more than a little disappointed, by his objection to Harrison’s work. 

Later, I discovered that the truth was much more complex. I should have known that Cecil isn’t like Leann Hart; he’s not worried about the slow death of his métier. Hell, even I know he’ll never have to worry about that; his voice sends such nice vibrations through my hornblende-type amphiboles, I can’t even imagine how it resonates in something as delicate as a human ear. 

I told you, it wasn’t a very promising beginning; it took me a long time to come to recognize that Cecil’s outwardly gregarious personality concealed surprising depths.

Like a lot of people in Night Vale, he uses those depths to hide things, from others as well as from himself. The average Night Valian buries things all the time - memories, objects, bodies, tiny buildings, secrets, all kinds of things. Cecil is no exception, and with his high-profile job, he has to be even more careful than most. I think that’s why he was so worried about Harrison Kip’s work – it’s the same reason everyone in Night Vale was. It has nothing to do with his silly theories, and everything to do with secrets. People dislike Harrison because they bury things, and archaeologists dig. 

* * *

Our second meeting occurred during the fight against StrexCorp, shortly after Leann Hart threw me at a gang of battle-hardened corpocratic assailants. I’m happy to say that I managed to bounce off the first Strex drone and gather just enough momentum to seriously injure a second before I rolled to a halt in a ditch. I had struck the second worker in such a way that he collided with two others, knocking them down. 

Unfortunately, in the confusion that followed, everyone forgot where I had landed and I was left behind as they scattered. I was starting to get really worried about how I was going to get home, and cast about with my mind to see if anyone was nearby. That's when I heard Cecil’s familiar voice.

I really thought he was speaking out loud, that’s how clearly I could hear him. But he wasn’t – I was picking up on his thoughts. 

Maybe this would be a good time to explain how my telepathy works. You probably don’t know any other telepathic river rocks, and it can be a little confusing at first.

All rocks emit some radiation, but only a select few of us can actually harness our nascent telepathic abilities. I can send my thoughts into other peoples’ heads without too much trouble, as long as they’re somewhere close by, but unless someone really focuses on sending clear mental messages, I can’t usually converse with them unless they’re actually speaking to me. Cecil was different. He’s what I think of as a transmitter, emitting a crystal clear mental signal that I could hear from anywhere in Night Vale. And wherever he was, he could hear me, too.

I focused on Cecil. He was at the radio station, only a few blocks away. 

“Cecil!” I called. “It’s Sarah Sultan! Leann threw me at some StrexCorp workers and I’m stuck in a ditch!”

“Sarah? Where are you? Why can’t I see you?”

I don’t sigh in the literal sense, but I often have cause to do so figuratively. “I just told you. I’m in a ditch across the street from the Daily Journal building.”

“How are you…how are we…?”

“It’s telepathy, Cecil.”

“Well, telepathize someone else, I’m barricaded inside the station and I’m pretty busy right now.”

“I know, I know, but look – for some reason you’re the only person I can communicate with long-distance. Just…send an intern or something, would you?”

He imagined several scenarios in which he refused this request, all some form of comeuppance for that unfortunate business with the caricature, but to his credit, he dismissed them, and finally said, “Okay. Fine. It’s a little crazy here right now, but I’ll try, okay? I can’t guarantee that the intern will make it…but I’ll try.”

“Okay. Thanks, Cecil. You’re being nicer than I deserve.”

“Don’t mention it. And Sarah?”

“Yeah?”

“How many StrexCorp workers did you hit?”

“Two directly, four if you count incidentals.”

“Wow,” he said, impressed. “Good job.”

* * *

Things were less tense between us after the whole Strex debacle, but we still didn’t reconnect right away. Cecil did manage to get an intern to take me back to NVCC, and I sent a thank-you note (no caricatures included), but neither one of us had made any particularly friendly overtures in the intervening months. 

Then the carnival came to town. 

I have a terrible weakness for funnel cake, so I got my administrative assistant to schlep me down to the abandoned lot on Bandera Street. By the time we arrived, though, people were frantically packing things back onto their trailers, and there was an angry mob of Night Valians pointing and yelling. Gary got carried away in the mob action and brandished a stick while waving me menacingly in the air.

“Gary,” I thought to him, as calmly as I could, “Put me down. Don’t you dare throw me at those carny folk, Gary!” He didn’t listen. Moments later, I was careening through the air. I bounced off someone’s upper arm and barked another person’s shin before rolling to a stop in the dust. Then, before I could collect myself, someone kicked me and I rolled out into a small patch of prickly pear.

“Well, fuck,” I thought to myself, watching in dismay as the mob continued to menace the rapidly-retreating carnival employees. 

“Sarah? Is that you?” It was Cecil. I have no idea how he heard me, but I was too relieved to care.

“Yes, it’s me. I’m out at the carnival, Cecil, and it’s getting pretty ugly. Are you seeing this?”

“I am! I think they’re doing a great job. We certainly don’t want another StrexCorp situation on our hands.”

“Oh, Cecil,” I sighed. “Look, my admin got carried away and threw me at someone. I just got kicked into a cactus. Any chance you have an intern lying around somewhere? I could use a hand.”

“Well, no, actually. I had one, but I think she just quit. I’m sorry – but I’m wrapping up here in a few minutes. I could…I mean, if it’s okay with you, _I_ could come get you?”

He found me about a half hour later, dusty and smarting from the injury to my _amour-propre_. It’s just so dehumanizing, being flung around like a common landscaping pebble.

“I know how you feel,” Cecil said. “It’s not much fun, being used without your permission or volition. Even in the service of a good cause.”

“No, it isn’t,” I agreed. “And now I’m going to have to find another administrative assistant. I don't think I can trust Gary, not after this.”

“Oh, hey! Do you think Gary might be interested in an internship?”

“At the radio station? Maybe. Don’t you have an awfully high attrition rate?”

“We do,” Cecil said darkly. “It’s a _very_ challenging program.”

“I’ll encourage him to apply,” I said, not without some satisfaction.

And just like that, all was forgiven, and we were friends. 

* * *

Since we could talk anytime, anywhere, in the privacy of Cecil’s mind, we got to be pretty close. I don’t sleep, so it was no problem to listen to Cecil when he was lonely or bored or just needed a little distraction to get him through the night. In return, he made me a few cobble cozies when he went through his knitting phase, and dropped by my office whenever he could with new plants for my terrarium.

Right after midterms, though, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t heard from him in a while, and I decided to reach out. 

Telepathy etiquette is all about fine lines – I typically announce myself before I settle into Cecil’s head, but I also like to make sure he’s got the time and inclination to talk first. So yeah, sometimes I poke around – just a little – to make sure I’m not going to be disruptive before I make my presence known.

I knew right away that I had caught Cecil at a bad time. The atmosphere inside his mind was dark and subdued. He was also on the phone with Carlos, and of course I didn’t want to pry, but...I was worried. Maybe I’m just rationalizing my eavesdropping, but I’d never felt Cecil at such a low point before. The only thing keeping him going was the slight hope that he might be permitted to visit Carlos soon, and that hope was a thin, tattered, threadbare thing.

There were also some deep resentments simmering in there. He was angry at Dana Cardinal because he believed she purchased Lot 37 at the Sheriff’s Secret Police Auction. He was angry at Steve Carlsberg for all the usual reasons having to do with his sister and his niece. Some of the negative energy was focused on the radio station, because of its byzantine leave policies, and on Night Vale in general for rejecting Carlos. He was also upset with Carlos, both for leaving and for his halfhearted efforts to get back. That last one was a terrible emotional trap, rebounding on Cecil and making him feel guilty for his desire to hold Carlos close, to limit his scientific explorations and keep him safe.

“I just need some time to think,” Cecil was saying. “I love you, you know that, but right now…so much is happening, so much is changing. I need…oh, I don’t know _what_ I need, I guess that’s the problem, and I just want some time and some space to figure it all out.”

“Of course, if you need time, I can do that,” Carlos said, but he sounded unsure of himself. “If that’s what you want, I don’t have to call every day, or even every other day. I mean, I know I say this all the time, but time is weird here. I actually don’t know how the timeline I’m experiencing relates to yours, so it’s a little hard to judge how often you’re getting my calls.”

“I know,” Cecil said. “It’s weird here, too – sometimes it’s every day, sometimes it’s once a week or even less. Just…maybe I’ll just switch off my phone for a while? I don’t want you to worry, but it’s just all getting to be too much. I feel pulled in so many different directions at once, maybe I just need to…to re-establish some boundaries.”

There was a long silence before Carlos spoke again. “Cecil, I don’t mean to push, but what’s going on there? You’re really worrying me.”

I was suddenly battered from all sides by the things Cecil wanted to tell him; about Dana and Lot 37, about his painful and desperate loneliness, about how all the things that he had once found familiar and comforting were suddenly unbearable. But all Cecil said was, “It’s a long story. I’ll…” he drifted off for a few seconds, collecting himself. “I’ll tell you when I see you. If I ever see you again.”

“Cecil? Sweetie, I - ”

“I’ve got to go now, Carlos, I’m sorry. Call me again in a few weeks, okay?” and he ended the call in spite of Carlos’s protests.

After that, I would have felt like a jerk sticking around inside Cecil’s mind without explicit permission. I butted out immediately, and didn’t try to talk to him again for a while. That was hard, because I was probably in a better position to understand Cecil than anyone else in town. Here’s the thing: most humans are used to a certain degree of agency in their lives. We rocks don’t always have that. Early in life, we have a long time to adjust to the changes that befall us. It took forever for me to weather apart from my parental bedrock, for example, and then it took absolutely _ages_ to get to a point where there was enough water around to smooth out my rough edges. Once I became a real river cobble, though, I had to adjust to rapid alterations in my circumstances.

Look, that’s all a long story, and no offense, but odds are you’re never going to understand what it’s like to be a telepathic river cobble. Here’s what I’m trying to get at: sometimes, it’s relaxing and comfortable to be passive and allow things to act upon or through you. Helplessness can be comforting, up to a point. Cecil was comfortable being a passive conduit for municipally-approved information, until he wasn’t. The discomfort of that adjustment is something I’ve experienced before, and I know how hard it is to regain your balance as your role changes.

Cecil was struggling with things I knew a lot about, and I wanted to help, but I also knew that the best way to do that was to let him work things out on his own.

* * *

I had gotten accustomed to talking to Cecil at least every other night, so I was at loose ends for a few weeks while he worked through his issues. I wrote a couple of Haikus, I went through the latest board meeting minutes, but I just couldn’t distract myself. I was getting worried, and I needed to talk to someone. The only person who was reliably awake at that hour was Simone Rigadeau. I felt a little conflicted about going to see her; we have a complicated history, Simone and I – more about that later – but she was always very insightful, and always made time for me.

I bit the bullet and decided to head over to the Earth Sciences Building.

I found her sitting in lotus position in the middle of one of the decrepit laboratories, several tin cans arrayed in an arc in front of her like sarsen stones. Well, kind of like sarsen stones, except that they were all wearing colorful woolly sweaters. I pressed gently into her delicate psyche, allowing her to become accustomed to my presence.

“Hello, Sarah,” she said after a few minutes, although she kept her eyes closed.

“Hi,” I said. It sometimes takes a while to get Simone used to talking. She spends a lot of time with her cans.

“I think something is wrong,” I said, after a while. “Something big.”

She opened her eyes slowly at that. Her eyes are two different colors, one bright green and one a flat, slaty blue. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do about it. Sorry.” She shut her eyes again.

“I don’t mean _that,_ ” I said. “I mean something new. A _new_ big wrong thing.”

Simone opened her eyes again, stretching her legs out in front of her, carefully avoiding knocking over any of the cans. “What is it?”

“It’s about Cecil. I’m worried about him.”

“Everyone’s worried about him. I’m more worried about the earthquakes, and our lack of a sense of time, and what all that means. But yeah, Cecil, he’s not doing so great.”

“Earthquakes?” I asked. “You mean the ones that don’t register on the seismographs?” I felt them all the time, but I had gotten so used to the near-constant rumbling I had forgotten to worry about them. Here’s something you might not know: those of us in the mineral kingdom have a pretty acute sense of cracks and faults. Not just cracks and faults in physical objects, but in nonmaterial realms as well. Most humans are oblivious to these kinds of things, but Simone isn’t like most humans. 

“You can feel them, can’t you?” Simone asked. “The earthquakes that don’t quake the earth. Or at least, they don’t quake _our_ earth.”

Right then, all I could feel was the faint susurrus of Simone’s thoughts, a tempting whirlpool, and edged away. If I get too close, I get swept up in her memories, and that’s always a disturbing experience. Many of Simone’s memories involve me, but not a version of myself that I recognize. She remembers me as a human being; as a woman she loved and shared a life with in another version of the world. I have no such memories, but I can also sense the authenticity of Simone’s recollections. Somehow, Simone is correct about my having once been her human lover, and I am correct about having always been a stone, earning my current river-smoothed shape over the course of uncountable millions of years. Both of these things are simultaneously true. The divergence of these two truths is difficult for me to endure, so I stay out of the way of Simone’s brain. It’s just uncomfortable.

“Yes, I can feel them,” I said, forcing myself to concentrate on the present. “What do you think they mean?”

“Maybe something. Maybe nothing. But probably something.”

“Okay,” I said. “I actually came down here to get some clarity, Simone.” I was starting to get a little testy.

“Well, good luck with that,” she said, wryly. “I don’t really understand the earthquakes yet myself. All I know right now is that they happen for a reason, and they stop happening for a reason.” Simone said. “Whatever those reasons are, nobody will like them. Nobody will believe them, or accept them.” She laced her fingers together in her lap. “They represent change. Nobody likes change.”

“I don't know. Some people are starting to open up to the idea of change,” I argued, thinking of Cecil, and his last few broadcasts. 

“They might find they don’t like it as much as they thought,” she replied, ominously.

“Simone?” I said, after a while. “I don’t know if you know this or not, but lately…Cecil and I have become friends, sort of. Okay, not ‘sort of’ – we’re friends. Definitely.”

She tilted her head. “That’s great, Sarah,” she said. “I've always assumed that rocks don’t need many friends. But it’s always nice to have at least one.”

“I didn’t used to think so,” I said. “But now I have one, and I’d like to keep him. I’m worried about the earthquakes, too, obviously, but right now, it’s Cecil I’d like to talk about, if that’s okay.”

She sighed and looked down at her hands. “Poor Cecil,” she said. “Did you know that the last time he came to talk to me he brought me knitted cozies for all my cans?” She gestured at the cans on the table in front of her, each one in its little woolen tube, and now that I really looked, I recognized Cecil’s handiwork. I was pleased to note that he had added several special details to my cobble cozies that weren’t included in the can cozies. It made me feel special.

“That’s really nice, Simone,” I said.

“It was so thoughtful of him.” She picked up one of the cans and petted its striped pink and green sweater. “He deserves better choices.”

“Better choices?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I don’t see what he can do with the options he has right now. None of us has much to choose from, but you’re right; Cecil has a lot of hard decisions coming.” She tapped one finger gently against my cortex and smiled sadly. “You’re right to be worried.”

I felt a sinking feeling. Not sure exactly how that happened, since my particles don’t move in any significant way. “What should I do?”

“Keep an eye on him. Be there. Listen. I think you’d be surprised by how much good those few simple things can do.”

Later, I would think how oddly prescient Simone’s words had been, but at the time, they just sounded like hackneyed and rather lame advice. I said good night to Simone, and headed back to my office to think.

* * *

I wasn’t planning to contact Cecil until he got back from vacation. I wasn’t even entirely sure I could find him in the desert otherworld – but then he reached out to me.

“Sarah? Are you there?”

“Cecil? Where are you? I thought you were on vacation.”

“I am. I just entered the Dog Park.” I caught a flash of the dream of the woman in the coral, the secret she had shared. He hadn’t fully expected it to work, and now that it had, he was at a loss. 

“You know you don’t have to whisper, right? We’re communicating with thoughts.”

“It just seems appropriate somehow,” Cecil mind-whispered. “It’s spooky here. There’s a monolith, and a bunch of tennis balls, and a forest of black metal trees – you know, the kind that protect us from clouds. The Dog Park wall stretches off into the distance. I think that’s where I’m supposed to go.”

“Is there anyone else there?”

“I don’t see anyone. Well, okay, there are some hooded figures, but they’re keeping their distance.”

“Do you want me to stay with you until you find your way?” I asked, thinking of Simone’s advice.

“Would you mind very much? I’d like someone to know if something happens to me before I can find Carlos.”

“Of course not. I’ll be right here, Cecil. Let me know what’s happening, okay?”

“Okay.” He didn’t say anything for a while, so I helped myself to his visual senses. He was walking along the gleaming black wall, one hand dragging across its smooth, slick surface, and before long he had left the monolith and tree-towers behind. 

“Dana said she followed this wall for two weeks,” Cecil said. “What if…” he didn’t finish his thought, but I knew what he was worried about.

“I have a feeling this will be different for you,” I said. “I think the relative positions of Night Vale and the desert otherworld shift from time to time. Sometimes we’re almost aligned, and other times we drift farther apart. I couldn’t tell you why or how I know, but I think we’re close, now. I don’t think it will take two weeks for you, Cecil.”

I felt a mental squeeze, almost a hug. “Thanks, Sarah,” Cecil said. “I hope you’re right.”

In fact, it only took a few hours. The change was subtle at first, but before long, the black wall disappeared and there was nothing but a wooden doorway, unsupported by any other structure. Cecil barely touched the doorknob and it swung open to reveal the barren living room of an empty house. Cecil tried several doors inside the house, but only one opened for him. On the other side was nothing but sun and sand. I felt my hold on Cecil’s consciousness flicker, as if I were about to lose a radio channel that had gotten too far out of range. I made an effort to stay with him, throwing all my energy into it, and it must have worked, because the next thing I knew, he was staring out at a vast expanse of desert.

Cecil stepped out into the blazing heat, staring around at a landscape he found strange and unfamiliar. To me, it looked pretty much the same as the desert that surrounds Night Vale, but I tend to process information a little differently than humans do. Cecil walked across a vast, flat expanse until he could make out the shapes of dunes in the distance, and something that could only be a mountain beyond the dunes.

At the crest of one of the dunes sat a small figure. Cecil picked up his pace, and soon he could see – and so could I – that the figure had dark hair, and was wearing what looked like a white lab coat.

“Sarah,” Cecil said. “I think I see Carlos.” In the distance, the little figure stood up and started moving toward Cecil. “It is, it’s him,” Cecil said, to himself more than to me.

“Are you sure?” I asked, but I could feel his certainty like the heat of the sun.

“It’s him, it’s Carlos, I have to - ” and then he really wasn’t thinking anymore. Part of me wanted to stay, to see the reunion, but I knew it would be unforgivably rude and nosy of me, so I let my consciousness dissolve from Cecil’s mind and returned to my own reality.

Or at least, I tried to. I was still in Cecil’s head, looking across the blindingly bright dunes at the figure of Carlos, growing nearer and nearer. I tried again, to no avail. It seemed I was stuck.

“Cecil!” I cried, but it was obvious that he couldn’t hear me anymore. I tried to switch off my awareness of Cecil’s sensory input, but that didn’t work either. My consciousness had been partially subsumed by his.

Nothing like this had ever happened to me. I had always been able to come and go as I pleased, I had never even heard of anyone getting stuck inside someone else’s head, but then, telepathy isn’t a common trait among rocks. I actually don’t know anyone else who possesses the ability, rock or otherwise.

I tried to tune out all the things passing though Cecil’s psyche, but it was like trying to resist the tide; I was completely overwhelmed. Whether I liked it or not, it appeared my consciousness was stuck in Cecil’s mind.

“Cecil!” Carlos called, hastening across the last dune separating the two of them. Finally, they flew together, right into each other’s arms, and I was aware of every sensation Cecil felt in that moment.

I just don’t know how humans manage. You take in a _lot_ of information, even if you aren’t aware of it. It’s a miracle you can control yourselves at all. 

There was the way Carlos felt against Cecil’s body, the familiar smell of his hair and skin, the sound of his breathing, and, after a few minutes of nothing but embracing, there was the taste of his mouth and the sensation of his tongue and the response of Cecil’s body to all of it. It felt a little like suffering. They just couldn’t stop touching each other, kissing each other, looking at each other, and the whole time they were in a weird emotional hell between laughing and crying. I suddenly realized that Cecil had never actually believed he’d ever see Carlos again, and that made the whole experience better and worse at the same time. I’m not doing a very good job of explaining this; maybe you had to be there. It was…well, I’m not usually sentimental, but I don’t think it’s much of a reach to call it beautiful.

In the midst of all this turmoil, Cecil’s brain was merging his memory of Carlos with the reality before him. Cecil noted the slight increase in the gray at Carlos’s temples, the way the sun had darkened the brown skin of his forearms and left an appealing glow over the bridge of his nose. The resulting wave of affection swelled up from below, and Cecil’s entire being felt lighter.

“You look so thin,” Carlos said, his brow furrowing as he stroked Cecil’s hollow cheek with one hand. “You haven’t been taking care of yourself.”

“I – “ Cecil said, then he shook his head. “It’s not important now.” He pulled Carlos close and kissed him again, hands cupping Carlos’s lightly stubbled jaw. “You’re even more beautiful than I remember,” Cecil whispered. “I didn’t think…” He left the thought incomplete. “I can hardly remember the last time I was this happy.”

I am in a position to tell you that this was perfectly true. The situation inside Cecil’s brain actually reminded me a little of the light of the Smiling God; it was a brightness that obliterated everything in its path, but this light was a benevolent thing, not at all like the shining horror that spilled over the thresholds of the Old Oak Doors.

A shadow fell over the two of them then, and there was a faint vibration in the sand beneath their feet. Cecil looked up and saw a massive masked warrior looming up behind Carlos.

“You must be Cecil,” came a booming voice. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Cecil stepped back and gazed up and up at the giant warrior in front of him. “Hello,” he said, extending his hand. “You must be Doug.”

Doug leaned over and took Cecil’s relatively tiny hand in his immense one, shaking it very gently.

“It’s really nice to meet you, at last,” Cecil said. “And thank you for saving Carlos from that rockslide.”

“Ain’t no thing,” Doug replied, straightening. “We should probably head back,” he said. “There’s…” he glanced down at Carlos, his expression mildly disapproving. “Well, never mind. We should just…get back.”

Cecil looked back at Carlos. “Is it far? What’s the problem?”

“The settlement isn’t that far, but there have been some, um…tensions.”

“Tensions?”

“It’s nothing,” Carlos said, waving a hand in the air. “Still, we’d better get back before…well, we’d better just get back. Oh, Cecil!” He flung his arms around Cecil again, and Cecil promptly forgot his concern. “I’m so happy to see you, I’m so glad you found a way into the Dog Park, I’m just… _so_ happy!” There was more kissing then, and while that was nice, I was grateful when Doug started making harrumphing noises.

“You guys are like, _way_ emo,” he muttered, which made Cecil smile as he and Carlos reluctantly pulled apart again.

“Emo,” he said quietly. “Is not the word that springs to mind.”

“There’ll be time for that later,” Carlos breathed into Cecil’s ear, and I felt the shiver that ran down Cecil’s spine, and the blush that heated his skin.

* * *

Carlos took Cecil on a quick tour of the settlement, but I don’t think he actually paid much attention to any of it.

I did, and it was troubling, to say the least. I’ve lived in Night Vale for quite a while, so I know cognitive dissonance when I see it. I was dismayed when neither Cecil nor Carlos seemed to register the fundamental wrongness that underpinned the entire desert settlement, but it was obvious that Cecil was in no condition to contemplate the waterless waterfront or the inescapable torture-coaster.

Before I explain the rest of this, I think it’s important to note here that I’m not a voyeur. I never stopped trying to alert Cecil to my presence, or to get back to my own reassuringly holocrystalline form, but something about the desert otherworld made both of these things impossible. You’ve probably never had your consciousness trapped in someone else’s brain, so you’d have no way of knowing this, but you really can’t help but share their experiences. You live them just as your host is living them. I still had my awareness of my identity, but I had no control over Cecil as he went about his life, and no ability to tune anything out.

That being said, I’m not entirely sorry about the two weeks I spent trapped in Cecil’s brain. I learned a lot.

Carlos stammered nervously as he showed Cecil around his apartment, and Cecil made approving little noises, but he was _not_ thinking about the importance of a southern exposure, or of a window over the kitchen sink. It made me wonder how often people pretend to be focused on what’s happening around them, even as very different events unfold in scathingly erotic detail behind their bland expressions.

“…and this is where I’m thinking of adding the breakfast nook,” Carlos said, pointing to a blank red stone surface. “Alisha said they’d help me knock out this wall.”

“Hmmm,” Cecil said, as he imagined pushing Carlos up against the wall and kissing him, grinding against him, slowly removing his clothes and tormenting him with his mouth until neither one of them could stand it for another second, then finally pushing him down onto the mattress in the tidy bedroom, watching as his eyes widened in surprise and desire and then –

“...finish this tunnel, that way I can go back and forth from here to the lab, even when – um, when it’s too h-hot to, um, to go outside.”

“That sounds great,” Cecil answered, while in his mind, Carlos gasped and moaned as Cecil fucked him into the mattress, their cries echoing against the stone walls of the apartment, and the spirit of that imagined pleasure trilled along Cecil’s spine.

“...thought maybe I’d put a balcony there, but the screaming from the roller coaster is pretty distracting.”

“Uh-huh,” Cecil said, and he bit his lower lip as his mental version of Carlos pulled his hips urgently against his own, over and over, leaning forward to whisper into Cecil’s ear, _harder, Cecil, harder…oh! Oh…you feel so good… oh, I can’t, I can’t…I’m going to…I’m going to…”_

“…although now that I’m thinking about it, a brake assembly shouldn’t be all _that_ complicated,” Carlos said, stroking his chin with one hand, and Cecil bit his lip even harder.

“It’s really very…homey,” Cecil said. “And surprisingly extant, given its location in a fictive landform. Oh! I almost forgot." He rummaged through his suitcase and withdrew a rectangular object wrapped in shiny purple wrapping paper. "A housewarming present," he explained.

"Thank you," Carlos said, as he unwrapped it carefully, untaping one end and sliding the gift out. "You didn't have to - oh," he stopped as he looked at the framed watercolor he now held in his hands. It was a painting of the Night Vale Arby's, with a dazzling display of lights in the night sky above. I'm no art critic, but it was really very appealing. 

"Oh, Cecil, thank you," Carlos said. "It's beautiful. I'll treasure this." He set it gently down on a side table, looking down at it fondly. There was an awkward pause. Their eyes met and they both looked away, shyly. _Oh for fuck's sake, get it together, Palmer,_ I thought. Really, sometimes he’s just so unbelievably exasperating. 

“It’s been a long day,” Carlos said eventually. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“That would be great, thank you,” Cecil answered politely.

“Doug brought me some coffee beans after his last foray across the desert. Or I have water, and almond milk, and the masked army makes this really awful prickly pear liqueur, but I’ve kind of gotten to like it.”

“Whatever you’re having is fine,” Cecil said. Carlos didn’t move. They both stood there for a full thirty seconds, completely motionless, although I could hear and feel Cecil’s heart pounding crazily, as if it might hammer right through the wall of his chest. Finally, Carlos took a half step forward, and that was all it took. They crashed into each other, their lips crushed together, and any coherent thoughts Cecil had were obliterated in an instant.

I’m not saying the human imagination isn’t impressive, but when it comes to sex, it has absolutely nothing on the real deal. 

They kissed fiercely, and in an instant Cecil was breathing so fast he felt dizzy, and I thought he might faint. Without breaking contact, Carlos started to unbutton Cecil’s shirt, but gave up and tore it off, sending buttons skittering to the far corners of the room. Cecil shoved the lab coat down over Carlos’s shoulders, tearing at the t-shirt he wore underneath. They split apart for an instant, long enough for Carlos to shrug the t-shirt over his head and for Cecil to peel off the tattered halves of his own garment, then they collided again, making little muffled sounds as if they were in physical pain. 

The sensations I was picking up _were_ a little like pain; a throbbing ache, importunate pressure, pooling heat. Cecil’s thoughts, which usually organized themselves effortlessly into words, became formless, urgent impulses. He pressed himself against Carlos’s body, running his hands from Carlos’s face to his hair to his neck to the small of his back. He pulled Carlos’s hips hard against his own and there was a surge of pleasure singing through nerves that were suddenly, achingly sensitive.

“I want you so, so much,” Carlos almost choked, hands fumbling at Cecil’s fly as he pushed him back against the sofa. They toppled over the armrest, collapsing in a graceless heap on the cushions. They had hardly stopped falling before they were kissing again, practically devouring each other. Cecil kissed Carlos’s mouth, his face, his eyelids, nibbled his earlobe, kissed and bit the salty skin of his neck, and Carlos reciprocated, pressing his lips to any part of Cecil he could reach. He stroked his hands up and down Cecil’s bare torso, then began to kiss it, and I have to say, that was just _lovely,_ it absolutely justified the possession of a torso, as far as I was concerned. 

Carlos’s hands slipped below the waistband of Cecil’s trousers, lightly brushing against the sensitive skin of his belly, causing Cecil to flinch and gasp. Carlos shucked Cecil out of his pants, kicked free of his jeans, and seconds later, I felt Carlos’s naked body settle over Cecil’s.

“Slowly,” Cecil gritted between clenched teeth. “I c-can’t – I won’t last, I-”

“Neither will I.” He took hold of Cecil’s hand and pushed it between their bodies. “It’s okay.” Cecil caressed him, a feeling of tenderness washing over him and making his eyes burn with tears. “Oh, Carlos,” he whispered. “It’s been _so long,_ I missed you _so much,_ I didn’t think I’d ever… _ever_ …oh…”

“Hush,” Carlos murmured, as he pushed his hips against Cecil’s and dropped his head to capture Cecil’s mouth again. They moved together gently at first, pausing for long moments between each thrust to hold back what felt like an avalanche of sensation. I was astonished at Cecil’s restraint; I could feel how much he wanted to go faster, to wrap his hands around Carlos’s hips and surge toward some explosive conclusion, but he resisted. The effort made his heart beat even harder, his skin prickle with sweat, and somehow the feeling of imminent pleasure continued to grow, built up and up, sharpened, struggled for release.

Carlos gripped Cecil’s hips tight, fingers digging into his flesh, and he whispered “Ah, god, Cecil,” as their heated bodies slid together roughly, and it seemed to be too much and not enough all at the same time until Carlos gave a brief, flickering smile, and shifted slightly as he sucked on two of his fingers and then slipped them between Cecil’s legs. The resulting feeling of fullness caused Cecil’s back to arch and his eyes to roll back in his head as he groaned in helpless pleasure. Carlos wasn’t being gentle, but somehow this opened up a vein of tender feeling in Cecil’s heart, because Carlos remembered just what he liked, and was doing it so perfectly, so beautifully, and it felt so, _so_ good.

Right in the middle of all this – which I was feeling just as much as Cecil was, mind you – a memory so vivid it felt like reality suddenly transported my consciousness to some other time and place. For a few seconds, it wasn’t Carlos I was looking at, it was Simone, and I wasn’t trapped inside Cecil’s body any longer, I was in a smaller, softer body, one that felt oddly familiar despite its evident non-minerality. Simone’s rose-petal soft lips pressed into mine and her breasts were crushed against my chest and something just _fantastic_ was happening near the middle of my body, the result of some small, delicate movement of Simone’s fingers against a collection of hypersensitive nerves, and it was like an atomic bomb going off somewhere inside, a deep and subtle supernova sending shockwaves of ecstasy coursing along my spine and radiating outward in pulsing waves.

When my consciousness dropped back into Cecil’s mind, he was right on the brink of that same shudderingly pleasurable sensation I had just recalled in such searing detail. I could feel the sharpness of his need for release, and it only heightened as Carlos hissed air through his teeth and let out a guttural, wordless moan. Cecil felt Carlos’s body hitch and pulse against his belly, and then he went over the edge right after him, and there was a delirious confusion of bodies and incomprehensible noises and a feeling of rapidly uncoiling tension as their frenetic movement slowed and slowed and finally, gradually, halted.

Carlos collapsed on top of Cecil, who relaxed into the sofa and lay there, panting, cradling Carlos’s head against his chest and stroking his tumbled hair absently. His brain was aloft on a cloud of really excellent sexually-generated dope, and even I was swept along by its blissy buzz. Carlos was just…the _best_. There are no words adequate to the task of explaining how much Cecil and I just _adored_ Carlos at that moment.

“Well,” Carlos said finally, kissing Cecil on the forehead and smiling gorgeously. “I told you it was gonna be good.”

* * *

It wasn’t all sex and endorphins and blissed-out afterglow - although that did make up a substantial percentage of it. Still, I had several other interesting experiences during Cecil’s vacation.

Here’s something I never understood before: coffee. I can’t smell, or taste, or imbibe caffeine, so I never understood how this one liquid developed such a fanatical following. But then Cecil made some one morning, and his whole brain lit up like the stadium at Night Vale High. I watched as the caffeine forged new mental pathways and opened up blood vessels. I felt the increased alertness and tasted the pleasurable smokiness and intriguing acidity. I _get_ coffee now.

Here’s another thing I never quite grasped: the quotidian obfuscations of love. I don’t think Cecil even noticed the unharmonious flavor combinations Carlos created in his tiny but efficiently tidy kitchen; it simply didn’t matter to him in the slightest. In fact, he actually seemed to find the idea of a ginger-cranberry-caper eggless omelet sort of adorable, but I’m here to tell you that it was _disgusting_. Fortunately, Cecil makes a creditable tofu scramble in addition to extremely drinkable coffee, so I didn’t squander my first remembered experience of taste completely.

They finally left Carlos’s apartment a few days later, blinking like dark-adapted cave creatures in the bright sun. As they made their way toward the boardwalk at the new waterfront development, Cecil stopped short. A man walked by a few feet ahead, waving cheerfully at the approaching couple. His overall size and bodily configuration was unremarkable, but his smile was unforgettable. I felt a jolt of recognition and uncertainty flash across Cecil’s mind. If it hadn’t been for the sunglasses obscuring his eyes, the man would have looked unmistakably familiar.

“Well, good morning, you two! You’re up…well, not _early_ , but hey, you're up! And..um, out of bed! Finally! And I’m sure you’ll have a super-productive afternoon. I know _I_ will!” And then he disappeared beneath a construction tarp, the billowing flap the only evidence of his passage.

The tent concealed a tall, spindly structure whose shape rather reminded me of the Eiffel Tower, or – strangely – the radio tower at Night Vale Community Radio.

Cecil froze, tightening his grip on Carlos’s hand. “Who was that?”

“Who was who?” Carlos asked.

“That man, the man who just waved at us and wished us a… _productive_ afternoon in that disconcertingly passive-aggressive manner.” When Carlos registered no obvious signs of recognition, Cecil waved a hand at the tent flap. “The man in the sunglasses, with the blood all over his shirt.”

“Oh, come on, Cecil. Blood?”

Cecil turned to look at Carlos, confused and unsure. “You didn’t see him?” he asked. Fear fluttered across Cecil’s psyche; I couldn’t be sure if it was fear of the man, a fear of the possibility of madness, or both.

“Cecil,” Carlos said placatingly. “Of course I saw him. But that couldn’t have been blood. I mean, look at this beautiful morning.” He swept one hand out, gesturing toward the silent waterfront buildings. “How would anyone have blood all over themselves on such a nice, quiet day? It was probably just barbecue sauce.”

Cecil blinked. He _wanted_ to believe Carlos. He wanted to be wrong. “Barbecue sauce?”

“Sure. There was a vegetarian chili and barbecue cook-off at the masked army’s training grounds this morning. I’m sure that’s all it was.” He stroked Cecil’s face gently with one hand. “Honey, it’s fine. You look so shaken up! Are you okay?”

Just like that, Cecil’s brain overwrote the clear image of the man’s face and the blood-soaked yellow fabric of his shirt. Cecil inhaled deeply and let out his breath as the tightness in his chest relaxed. “Oh. Yes, of course…of course. I’m fine,” His mouth wavered into an uncertain smile. He covered Carlos’s hand with his, drew it down to his lips, and pressed a kiss into his palm. “You’re right. The sun must’ve been in my eyes.” Carlos clasped Cecil’s hand and kissed it back, and they continued on their way.

But the sun had been behind them, and I had recognized Kevin, too.

* * *

They spent two days hiking the canyons around the settlement with Alisha, until a distant horn sounded and a column of smoke rose from somewhere just beyond the horizon, summoning the masked warriors to battle.

“Oh crap,” Alisha said. “I’ve gotta go, you guys. Will you be okay here by yourselves? You want me to leave a detail behind, just in case?”

“Well, if you think it’s necessary - ” Cecil started to say, but Carlos laid a hand on his arm and he paused.

“Don’t be silly,” he murmured, shooting Cecil a sidelong glance from beneath partially lowered lashes. “We’ll be fine.” He slipped one hand into the back pocket of Cecil’s jeans and squeezed. 

“Oh! Um,” Cecil stammered, clearly flustered. “Yeah, actually, we’re– ah! We’re good, Alisha. You go ahead. Please be careful.”

“Good luck!” Carlos called as the warrior saluted them and made their way back along the footpath toward the canyon rim. As soon as the warrior disappeared around the bend in the trail, he turned to look at Cecil. Almost the instant their eyes met, they flung themselves into one another’s arms and kissed until they were breathless.

“Where?” Cecil rasped, as Carlos trailed kisses down his neck.

“Rockshelter,” Carlos answered, gesturing vaguely at a point a few hundred feet farther along the trail. He pinned Cecil against the cliff face and they continued kissing for several more minutes. Cecil finally pushed gently on Carlos’s chest and their eyes met again. Carlos looked as flushed and disheveled as Cecil felt. He gripped Cecil’s hand tightly and led him swiftly up the path to the almost invisible entrance to the shelter.

Inside, the air was surprisingly damp and had a faint, sharp mineral fragrance. Cecil looked down, and as his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light inside, he saw several bubbling pools of water sunk into the cavern floor.

“Hot springs,” Carlos said, smiling as he noted Cecil’s pleased expression.

“Just like Radon Canyon,” Cecil said. “Except, of course, not nuclear. Or at least, I assume they’re not?”

“Geothermal,” Carlos said, shaking his head. “And look.” He pointed toward the cavern ceiling. There was a round opening there, allowing a small amount of the early evening light into the enclosed space.

“It’s beautiful,” Cecil said, but there was an uneasy stillness in his mind that I didn’t like. 

His body was still, too, and Carlos noticed. “Hey,” he said. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

I was wondering the same thing. The last eleven days had been surprisingly carefree for Cecil, but I now felt the weight of everything he had been staving off, a landslide of worries and fears that threatened to crush everything in their path.

“It’s just…it’s so _nice_ here,” Cecil said finally. “You’ve done so much work, you’ve built so many new buildings…I guess I’ve been imagining you living in some uncivilized wilderness, but this isn’t just a campsite, is it? It’s…p-permanent. I knew you couldn’t come back to Night Vale, but I hadn’t really thought…I hadn’t really _considered_ that this wasn’t just a temporary separation. You really live here now. This is your home.” His voice broke on the last word.

Carlos gathered both of Cecil’s hands. “Yes,” he said. “For now, I guess that’s true.”

Cecil tried to smile, and it felt terrible. “Carlos,” he said. “This is my first vacation in at least…god, I don’t know, twenty years? Longer? I don’t know when I’ll be able to visit again. Of course I’ll keep trying, maybe I could…I don’t know, look for a new job or something. I’ve been trying not to think about it, but this…” he gestured around the little cave. “It’s hard not to notice that you’ve done a lot of work here. You’ve made a place for yourself here.”

“Cecil,” Carlos said placatingly, but Cecil squeezed his hands and shook his head. 

“Let me finish, please,” he said. “This whole time, I’ve been hoping you might find a way to come back. I want you, _need_ you, so much. But now I can see…this place needs you, too. And there might not be a way for you to come back to Night Vale.” He glanced around then, and spotted a low sandstone bench that ran around the edge of the cave. He sat down heavily and Carlos took a seat beside him. “I’ve been trying not to think about it – I mean, this is a vacation, right? I shouldn’t burden you with all this, and I’ve tried to just put it out of my mind, but seeing all the work you’ve done…” he sighed, thinking _You're never coming back,_ but he didn't say it out loud. He tried the smile again, but the results were no better the second time. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be so gloomy.”

“We’ll find a way, Cecil,” Carlos said. “We will. People overcome all kinds of obstacles every day. There’s no reason not to believe that we will, too. I mean, look at us!” He held out his hands. “Cecil, you entered the forbidden Dog Park! You found your way here! A year ago, I would have said both those things were impossible, but here we are.” 

“That’s true,” Cecil agreed, making an effort to feel encouraged by this. 

“And you’ve said things are changing a lot in Night Vale. Things are changing here, too. Like you said, this isn’t just a desert otherworld anymore. It’s an actual place with an actual town. Maybe…well, who knows what might happen?” He pulled Cecil close and kissed him. “Don’t give up on us,” he whispered. “We’ll find a way.”

As he looked into Carlos’s dark eyes, a fragile bubble of hope formed inside Cecil’s mind. “You’re right,” he said, swallowing with an audible click. “You’re right, Carlos, of course you are. We’ll find a way.” 

“We will,” Carlos said, leaning forward to kiss him softly on the lips. They scooted closer together, and Cecil’s hands slipped around the back of Carlos’s head. The kiss grew deeper, their breathing harsher, the only sound other than the faint trickling and bubbling of the steaming pools. 

“Oh, god,” Cecil rasped as Carlos slid a hand between his legs, banishing the rest of his thoughts of looming separation and feelings of rejection to some dim corner of his brain. Carlos pulled Cecil upright and tugged open the fastenings of his clothes, and within seconds there was only the sensation of Carlos’s warm hands on Cecil’s electrified flesh. 

The two of them had already exorcised whatever repressed sexual energy they had held in check for the whole of the previous year, and then some. The entire first week of Cecil’s visit had been spent (and spent, and spent) in Carlos’s apartment, and they had moved beyond satiety and surfeit to wretched excess days ago. Cecil was actually surprised to feel himself stirring at the touch of Carlos’s hands on his body; he had expected to be incapable of any further arousal for at least another 24 hours. But it wasn’t just about the sex, of course; it was the joining, the closeness, and the thought that their next encounter, or the next, might be the last for an unknowable expanse of time. 

They slid off the little sandstone shelf, and Carlos pushed Cecil down onto his back. Cecil closed his eyes, so I couldn’t see what was happening, but there was a sensation of tight, wet heat moving against his slightly sore and exquisitely sensitive skin. It made Cecil’s head drop back against the sandstone floor and he groaned in what sounded like agony, but felt like hot liquid joy coming to a boil in his veins.

Cecil’s hands came to rest on the back of Carlos’s head as his hips moved very slightly in concert with Carlos’s mouth and tongue. Somehow Cecil was feeling this absolutely _everywhere,_ from the soles of his feet, up along his spine, all the way to his scalp. One of Carlos’s hands drifted across his chest and he toyed with one intensely sensitized nipple, even as the other moved caressingly between Cecil’s legs. Cecil’s back arched and he sighed, sinking further into a state of sexual delirium.

I had grown accustomed to these kinds of experiences, so I drifted a little, wondering if my administrative assistant was removing me from my terrarium and rinsing me off from time to time, making sure I didn’t start accumulating granite moss. I hoped so. I also wondered what was happening politically in Night Vale. Our recent mayoral election was still the topic of lively dispute. I wondered who would be mayor when we got home, assuming we ever made it back.

A swell of warmth and acute bodily sweetness snapped me back to Cecil’s consciousness, and I felt his hips jump as he rushed toward completion. I heard/felt Carlos moan deep in his throat, and that was what brought on the blinding, paralyzing sensation of ecstasy that finally overtook Cecil’s nerves and brain. 

It was hard to think for a while after that. As we slowly reconnected with reality, Carlos pulled Cecil close against him, and Cecil snuggled back against his body. 

Before long, Cecil became aware of Carlos’s hardness against his backside, and he pressed back into it suggestively, eliciting an involuntary gasp. 

“It’s too bad we don’t have any- ” Cecil said, but Carlos had leaned to one side and was already rummaging through his little knapsack. 

“Actually, we do,” he said. “If you want to. I mean, I didn’t want to presume, I only have a little, I was saving it for a special…well. But if you’d rather not– ”

“No – I mean, yes, yes, I’d…I’d like that,” Cecil said, turning over and pulling Carlos into a kiss. “Very much,” he added.

The removal of clothes was leisurely now; there was no longer any cause to hurry. Cecil lavished attention on every part of Carlos he revealed, kissing, licking and sucking everything that could reasonably be kissed, licked or sucked, until finally, they lay together, naked and wanting. Carlos cautiously pressed two fingers into Cecil’s body, moving gently but insistently against the tightness, and Cecil gasped and bit his lip. 

Cecil was relaxed enough that it didn’t take long to make him ready, and there was very little resistance and no pain as Carlos pressed into him. Carlos held back, letting Cecil’s body adjust to his presence, until Cecil moved his hips, taking Carlos even deeper, and Carlos’s eyes went glassy.

“Oh, god,” he groaned, “Oh my god, you feel so…so… _so...good_ , I want…I’ve wanted to…to _do_ this…for _days._ ” He was moving in slow, easy strokes, just touching the place that made Cecil’s body jerk in involuntary spasms of enjoyment. 

“Oh, Carlos,” Cecil gasped, “Oh, there - _there,_ _Oh!_ …oh my _god_ , oh _my god_ , oh my - don’t – don’t s-stop…! Oh, there! There, yes, yes, yes…” His body bucked against the hard ground. His gasps and moans were drawn out of him unthinking, in time with each movement. Carlos was practically sobbing into the nook between Cecil’s neck and shoulder, “Too much… _too much_ , oh god Cecil, _please_ ,” until his speech devolved into wordless sounds of pleasure as he thrust roughly into Cecil’s body. 

Cecil felt it when he started to come, a hard twitch that set off sparks of pleasure inside his own body, and then a hot wetness filled him as Carlos shook apart inside him. Cecil wrapped his arms around Carlos, buried his face in his hair, and they stayed that way, holding each other tight, for what felt like forever, and was no time at all.

Later, they let the warm water of the largest pool soothe away the aches in their muscles and the sweat and stickiness from their skin. Their hands floated easily near the water’s surface, bumping together as they gazed up through the opening in the cave’s roof at the lights in the sky. To Cecil, they were reminiscent of the lights above the Arby’s back in Night Vale, but seemed to lack the logic of that glittering display. He felt confused until he glanced over at Carlos, who met his gaze with warm brown eyes and said, “I love you, Cecil.”

Whenever he looks at Cecil like that, Cecil goes as warm and loose as a cat in a sunbeam, rendered helpless and abject by love. He squeezed Carlos’s hand and tried not to think about the future.

* * *

I realize this all might seem like too much information. That’s not lost on me. I may be a rock, but I’ve spent a lot of time around humans, and I have a pretty good handle on your customs and mores, so…yeah. I get it. 

The reason I’m sharing this here is because I don’t think I understood before the strength of the connection between Cecil and his boyfriend. I didn’t quite get what he was willing to risk just for a simple two-week visit, or why he would be willing to risk anything at all. 

As a rock, I’ve always been aware of the overarching patterns of union and separation that govern the universe. Things are always been brought together and taken apart; but our particles are all the same in the end. It never occurred to me how difficult these unions and partings might be at the individual human level. I’ve always thought humans were just an especially histrionic species. 

Then, too, there was that little fragment of memory that I had recovered. It had felt more intense and immediate while I had shared Cecil’s more responsive human body, but I was not unaffected by it, even in my usual stony form.

The moment Cecil stepped back through the door into the house in the Desert Creek subdivision, my consciousness snapped instantly back into my body. I was in the little Zen garden outside the NVCC library. I go there sometimes to meditate; I suppose my assistant mistook my weeks-long silence for a state of deep reflection. I was pleased to find that she had indeed kept me free of moss while I was away.

* * *

It took me a few days, but eventually I did go to see Simone again. 

“Cecil was always so careful until Carlos came along,” I said, once I had filled her in on the broad outlines of my accidental adventure. “That’s the problem with scientists. They make you question everything.”

“He was never going to be safe,” Simone said. “No one ever is.”

“Yes, but he has family here, friends, a whole life, and right now he’s making a lot of terrible assumptions. The place where Carlos is isn’t any better than Night Vale. It might even be worse.” I thought of all the things I had seen in the desert otherworld. “Maybe even _much_ worse. At least our ice cream parlor has ice cream again.”

Simone smiled. “You seem very…” her eyes looked upward, as if she might find the word she was looking for on the ceiling. “ _Invested_ in this, all of a sudden.”

“I told you, I was right there with him, part of him, the whole time. I felt how much he wants to be with Carlos,” I said. “I even kind of _love_ Carlos, which I really hope will wear off soon. And Carlos can’t come back here without leaving Night Vale open to the Smiling God.” Somewhere deep in my crystalline structure, I felt the memory of a shudder. The Smiling God was truly awful. Even stones feared the Smiling God.

“Poor Cecil,” she said. She caressed me lightly with one finger. “It’s just like us, all over again. It’s a zero-sum game.”

I wasn’t familiar with this concept. “Zero-sum game?” I asked.

Simone smiled sadly at me. “Like with us,” she said again. She held out one hand to stop my habitual protest. “I know you don’t remember it,” she said. “But I think about us a lot. There are ways we might try to heal the rift that separates us from our original place in time and space. I’ve thought about it _so_ many times. It’s…god, it’s just so unbelievably tempting. We might even be able to work it so we could escape before – that _thing_ that happened.” Simone never talked about whatever it was that separated the two Night Vales, but I had my suspicions. “But everyone else would die. Everyone we know and love. So, if we win, everyone else loses. If everyone else wins, we lose. One thing is always at the expense of the other. Like Rock-Paper-Scissors. Someone _has_ to lose, or the game isn’t over.”

I’m terrible at Rock-Paper-Scissors, for obvious reasons, and I’m never sure whether I should be offended when someone mentions it, but I let it pass. “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Why does someone have to lose? Why can’t we find a solution that works for everyone?”

“Maybe we could have, once,” Simone said dreamily. “But not now, with so much distrust and decay and confusion. We’d need cooperation, confidence, a sense of connection and community. We just don’t have that anymore. We’re vulnerable now.” 

Vulnerable. It made me think of how achingly vulnerable Cecil was. I used to dislike that quality in people; I had exploited Cecil’s vulnerability when we first met, insulting him to make him leave me alone. I saw now what a fine quality it was in an individual human, and what a dangerous quality it was for a collection of humans. 

“Goddamn Cecil Palmer,” I said. “This whole thing with him has made everything so complicated. I miss being able to view things from the dispassionate rock point of view. I should have Leann throw me at him.”

“You won’t,” Simone said warmly. “You like him too much.”

We sat together in silence for a while, and I struggled with a decision I thought I had already made. Finally, I said, “Simone, while I was in Cecil’s mind, I…remembered something. Just a moment, but it was us, the two of us…from before.”

Simone looked at me, but said nothing. “When we were both human,” I continued. “I remembered. Vividly. How wonderful it was. And now, seeing how ripped up Cecil is, _feeling_ that, I guess I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was always so dismissive. I didn’t understand before, but now I do.”

“Oh,” Simone said softly. “Oh.” She sat quietly for another minute, then, hesitantly, lifted me up, very slowly, and kissed me. 

I must have picked up some little scrap of Cecil’s tendency toward magical thinking; I half expected to turn back into the human woman I had once been after being kissed by Simone. I have no idea if my current stone body was the distant past or the distant future of that woman, or exactly how I had grown so temporally distant from the woman I had loved, but it appeared that there was no easy solution to our fundamental bodily incompatibility. 

“Thank you for telling me,” she said. 

“You’re welcome.”

“It’s okay, you know,” she added. “Our liaisons are finite. It’s what makes them beautiful. It would be nice to think that we get second chances, but even when it seems like we do, in the end, they’re just part of our one chance. The only chance we get.”

“At least Cecil and Carlos are both alive, and even if they’re not in the same dimension, they’re not so far apart in time and space that either of them has endured a total rearrangement of his particles. Neither one of them has turned into a rock, for example.”

“True,” Simone said carefully. “But things are always coming together and being torn apart, aren’t they? And those joinings and disunions cause the world to ache and rumble. There’s still a change coming, and it might not be good.”

“But it might not be entirely bad,” I said hopefully.

She smiled at me, a little pityingly. “No, it might not be entirely bad,” she agreed. “And without change, everything would fester and die anyway.”

“So we risk it, right? Change? Even if it tears us apart?”

“Even if it tears us apart.” She looked sad, and I _felt_ sad. It was a sad situation. 

Later that night, I thought about what Simone had said, and what it might mean for us, for Night Vale, for Cecil, and for Carlos and everyone else in the desert otherworld. There were too many variables for me to reckon it all out; only nature can handle an equation that complex. I tried to be glad that Cecil had gotten his vacation; that he and Carlos were not without some small hope for the future. 

My solitary consciousness, usually a comfortable place, was lonely without the continual hum and buzz of Cecil’s thoughts, but I wasn’t sure I was quite ready to talk to Cecil just yet. I thought of Simone, alone in the Earth Sciences Building with her cans, and cautiously let my mind drift in her direction. I caught a single, focused line of thought.

 _Rock-paper-scissors,_ Simone was thinking, as she rearranged her cans into a zig-zag formation on the table. _Someone has to lose._ And a chill passed through me as I withdrew back into my own safe, still mind.


End file.
